


To the Rescue

by Krank



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Drabble, Fluff, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 11:24:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krank/pseuds/Krank
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One night as Harry is walking home, he happens upon a cute blond stranger who needs his help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> I have a kink for damsel-in-distress!Niall. Sorry not sorry.

Harry hated walking home at night. He tried to avoid it if he could, purposely picking a course schedule that allowed him to make it back to his closet-sized flat by sundown. He always took the train at rush hour when there were plenty of other people and he never made unnecessary eye contact. He wasn’t sure what frightened him so much, though he thought perhaps it was the fear of London his mother had instilled in him before he moved there for school.

That Friday night, however, Harry had been helping a friend with his coursework, acting as a tutor of sorts. He’d kept watch of the time, though as they settled in and got comfortable, and spent most of their time laughing and carrying on, when Harry eventually managed to take his leave, it was pushing midnight. He was social to a fault.

Thus, Harry was walking down his street from the tube station, wool coat buttoned up with a scarf around his neck. It was October and London was _freezing_.

One of the reasons Harry was wary about walking at night was because of the neighborhood he was in. He found the cheapest place he could, and it just so happened to be close to quite a busy street full of pubs. There were a lot of drunken wanderers later at night, and Harry thought himself a prime target. He was wiry, and a bit weak. He’d never been much at defending himself, because he’d never had to. He knew that if he ever found himself in a hostile situation, that he’d likely get pummeled.

Harry was also very aware of how he presented himself to the public. He had come out when he was sixteen, in his small town of Holmes Chapel. It had been rather uneventful, luckily, though Harry knew that a bigger city was more likely to have people opposed to the whole idea. He was selective about who he shared his lifestyle with among his new acquaintances.

Harry could see his apartment block up ahead and he breathed a sigh of relief, adjusting his cross body school bag. However, as soon as he allowed himself the small celebration of a successful trip home, he heard the scuffing of feet behind him. Harry stopped abruptly, whipping his head around. Out of the shadows of one of the alleys he’d passed, a dark figure stepped out.

Harry held his breath and resumed his walking.

“Hey!” He heard a voice call out. It sounded younger. It was likely a uni student trying to make it home from the bar. Harry ignored him and kept his pace up.

“Hey, wait! Please… I need your help.”

Harry only stumbled once as he heard the pleading voice. It could be a ruse to reel him in. Try and play on Harry’s emotions and then pounce. Harry briefly wondered if he _looked_ gay. He was just an eighteen-year-old boy, walking down the street in a wool coat. Was it the coat? Perhaps he should have chosen something more manly to keep him warm-

“I don’t… I don’t know where I am.”

At those words, Harry ground to a halt. He bit his lip, hoping and praying that he wasn’t making the wrong decision. He turned around and backtracked a bit, nearing the stranger on the sidewalk.

The guy was barely upright, his knees bent and his torso doubled over. He wore only a t-shirt and jeans, despite how cold it was outside. He was swaying, and looked extremely inebriated. When Harry got close enough, he could see blond hair.

The stranger suddenly looked up at him, eyes glazed.

“Please help me!” He said again, and Harry heard a hint of an Irish accent.

“Are you… are you alright?” Harry came to a stop when he was roughly five feet away from him, still managing to keep some distance between them for his own peace of mind.

“I don’t know, I… I was at this pub and there was this guy.” The blond ran a hand through his hair, clutching on to the rim of the garbage can beside him. Harry tried not to think of how unsanitary it was. “My drink… I think he put something in my drink.”

Harry’s blood ran cold. He’d heard the horror stories of people being drugged. He always made sure he ordered his own drinks, and that as soon as he took his eyes off of them, that he replaced it with a new one.

The blond suddenly lost his footing and fell back on to his bottom, leaning against the side of the bin. He began to sob openly, pulling his knees up close to him. Harry surged forward to help him, throwing caution to the wind. He figured he had seen enough to know that the boy was being honest.

“You were drugged?” He asked, crouching down in front of the slumped figure.

The blond looked up at him and nodded. “He tried to get me in his car, I think… I just ran, I didn’t know what else to do. But… I don’t know this city and I don’t know where I am,” he cried, wiping the tears from his cheeks.

“Well, we’ll go back to the main street, maybe find a police officer, or-“

Harry stopped when the stranger shook his head. “They wouldn’t help me. Said I deserved it.” He slurred.

Harry felt anger surge through him at the blatant display of homophobia. Men could be taken advantage of just as easily as women could. “Is there somewhere I can take you? An address, maybe?”

The stranger shook his head, eyes closed. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

Harry sighed, running his fingers through his hair. He was unsure of what to do. He couldn’t leave the poor kid there… He was extremely vulnerable, and they were in a terrible part of town. Not to mention, it was pushing zero degrees and he was only in a t-shirt. On the other hand, he didn’t even know him. He could be a bad person…

As Harry was in the midst of his internal battle, out of the corner of his eye he saw another dark figure a few blocks away walking towards them. He began to panic, and quickly made up his mind.

“Here, put your arm around me,” he breathed, though he grabbed the boy’s arm and did it for him. He straightened himself and pulled the guy up with him.

“Where are we going?” The blond mumbled, head drooping against Harry’s shoulder.

“I’m taking you to my place. I can’t leave you here.” Harry wrapped his arm around the slim waist of the boy beside him and began to walk, supporting his minimal weight. He walked quickly, and when he glanced over his shoulder, the dark figure had backed off, heading in the opposite direction. Harry felt triumphant. 

“Are you going to… are you going to hurt me?” A small voice stuttered.

Harry looked down at him, eyebrows knitted. “Of course not. I’m going to help you.”

Harry wasn’t a brave person. He tried to be kind, and generous, but he wasn’t heroic. He was no superhero, scouring the streets for people in need. He was just a boy in uni, trying to do the right thing. And in that moment, the right thing in his heart was to protect the blond boy who needed his help.

His mother was going to have an aneurism when he told her.

\------

Harry had a moment of panic when he awoke the next morning to a view of all of the junk that was under his bed. He blinked a couple of times, and felt the ache of stiff muscles.

He was lying on the floor.

He rolled over and groaned as his back cracked. He winced at the bright sunlight streaming through his only window, and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. When he looked up and saw an arm hanging over the edge of his bed, it all came rushing back to him.

Dark figure. Blond hair. Drugged boy.

Harry sat up, looking down at the makeshift bed he had created for himself the night before. His small flat was only one room and a bathroom, and contained only a bed, wardrobe, and an overstuffed chair he’d found at a second-hand store, and a table with his hot plate. It wasn’t glamorous, and when he had stumbled in late the night before with the boy hanging off of his arm, he had had little other choice than to camp out on his hard floor and surrender his bed.

It had seemed like the right thing to do.

Harry rose from the floor and stretched, trying not to make too much noise. He then looked down at his last minute guest, observing him in the light of day. He had tossed and turned quite a bit the night before after he had passed out. Harry saw that he had finally come to a stop on his stomach, the right side of his face pressed in to the pillow.

His hair was bleached blond, even lighter in the sunlight. He was pale, and he had a cute dimple on his chin.

Harry yawned, scratching his stomach. He was exhausted, and knew that he wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep on the floor. It had been all right in a dire situation, but it was quite miserable.

Instead, Harry got to work making some tea. Tea made everything okay.

As Harry returned from his small bathroom with a kettle full of water, though, he was startled to find his stranger sitting up in bed, wide eyed. Harry braced himself on the doorframe to avoid dropping his kettle.

“God, you scared me!” He gasped, trying to calm his racing heart.

“Where am I?” The boy croaked. “This isn’t my bed. Who are you?”

Harry sighed. Obviously it wasn’t going to be as easy as waking him up to a cup of tea and introducing himself. He set his kettle down on his table and walked towards the bed, very aware that he was still minimally clothed in his black boxer-briefs. As he stepped forward, though, the blond tensed, causing Harry to take an immediate step back.

He decided to begin with something simple. “What’s your name?” He asked.

“Niall,” the boy answered quickly, though he looked as if he regretted it.

“Nice to meet you, Niall. I’m Harry. And you’re in my flat.”

“Why am I in your flat? I don’t remember you!” He became defensive again.

“What _do_ you remember?” Harry folded his arms across his chest leaned back against the wall.

He watched as the gears turned in Niall’s head. He looked worried, and a bit scared. “I… I remember being in a pub. A lot of my friends from class were there… And I was having drinks and having fun.” He paused, squeezing Harry’s blanket in his fists. When he spoke again his voice was watery. “And I can’t remember anything after that.”

“You don’t remember _anything_?” Harry gasped.

Niall shook his head, tears welling in his eyes. “I was outside, maybe… I remember it was cold. But that’s it. I don’t know how I got here. Did I… Did I _go home_ with you?” He asked hesitantly, an implication in his tone.

“Not exactly. May I sit?” Harry asked. Niall nodded and Harry took a seat at the end of his bed. Up close, the first thing he noticed about Niall were his blue eyes. They were _beautiful_. “I found you on the street. Well, _you_ found _me_.” Harry smiled softly. “You asked me for help.”

“Help with what?” Niall asked, exasperated.

Harry took a deep breath, unsure of how to tell Niall what had happened to him. He still didn’t even know the boy, and yet he had brought him back to his home and put him in his bed. He had no idea how Niall was feeling. “As far as I know, someone drugged you last night.”

Niall stared at him for a long moment, processing what Harry had told him. After a while he nodded, looking down at his lap. He let out a shaky breath and closed his eyes. “It makes sense, I guess. I guess I sort of deserved it.”

Harry inhaled sharply. “What does that mean? Why did you deserve something like that?”

Niall shrugged. “I got really drunk. I’m a lightweight to begin with, and I take drinks from anyone who will buy them for me. I’m just surprised it hasn’t happened sooner.”

Harry frowned. “That doesn’t mean that you’re free for the taking. You’re a human being.”

Niall smiled suddenly, and the sight of it went straight to Harry’s heart. “You’re cute.”

Harry immediately became flustered. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” Niall stared at him for a moment. “You’re just sweet. Naïve, maybe, but kind. You gave me your bed, slept on the floor… Maybe I had an angel on my side when I found you last night. You were my knight in shining armor.”

Harry’s heart skipped a beat. “Would you… would you like some tea?”

 

Harry took the opportunity to throw some jogging pants on as his water boiled. He was very aware of Niall watching him from his bed. Just the sight of the blond among his pillows was doing terrible things to Harry’s libido, which was picking a very inappropriate time to act up. Niall was a picture, though; there was no denying that.

Niall happily took his cup of tea, Harry sitting across from him at the opposite end of the bed.

“So you didn’t have your wicked way with me while I was unconscious last night, then?” Niall asked over the rim of his cup.

Harry accidentally inhaled his beverage at Niall’s words, coughing and spluttering. Niall threw his head back and laughed.

“That’s not funny!” Harry choked. “I would never do something like that.”

Niall shrugged, taking another mouthful of tea. “I’m just saying, you could have. I can’t say I would have minded.”

 


End file.
